State v. Styles

379 S.E.2d 255, 93 N.C. App. 596, 1989 N.C. App. LEXIS 396
CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedMay 16, 1989
Docket8822SC654
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 379 S.E.2d 255 (State v. Styles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Styles, 379 S.E.2d 255, 93 N.C. App. 596, 1989 N.C. App. LEXIS 396 (N.C. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinions

GREENE, Judge.

In this criminal action, defendant was found guilty by a jury for first-degree burglary, N.C.G.S. Sec. 14-51 (1986), second-degree sexual offense, N.C.G.S. Sec. 14-27.5 (1986), second-degree rape, N.C.G.S. Sec. 14-27.3 (1986), and common-law robbery, N.C.G.S. Sec. 14-87.1 (1986). Defendant was sentenced to terms of fifty years, twenty years, twenty years, and ten years respectively, all to be served consecutively. Defendant appeals.

The evidence at trial tended to show: On 31 May 1987, Cora Lillian Jolly, age seventy-four, was living with her ninety-three [599]*599year old invalid sister Allie Jolly Isenhour in Mrs. Isenhour’s house near Mecimore Trailer Park. On the night of 31 May, Ms. Jolly put Mrs. Isenhour to bed and then went to bed herself at approximately 11:00 p.m. The two women slept in separate bedrooms. Ms. Jolly was awakened when a man put one hand on her head and the other one over her mouth. The man was right over her at the side of the bed and told her to be quiet and not to make any sound or he would kill her. The man then crawled up on her bed and proceeded to have vaginal and anal intercourse with Ms. Jolly and forced her. to perform fellatio. During this time, he called Ms. Jolly “a little bitch a time or two,” took her foot and jerked her around on the bed, grabbed her breast and told her he would cut it off, and hit her on her face, shoulder and hip. At one point he threatened to kill Ms. Jolly and her sister and Ms. Jolly asked him to please not hurt her sister because she was an invalid. The man told Ms. Jolly he wanted some guns and money. She told him she had none although in actuality she had a ten dollar bill in a brown envelope with her name on it inside her bra. Her bra was hanging on a chair two or three feet from her bed. Ms. Jolly testified she knew the man had gotten the money because she heard him “a ’rambling around in there.”

When the man left her house he told her to lie on the other side of the bed and stay there for fifteen minutes. She heard banging around in the kitchen and then heard the back door shut. She did not hear a car start up. She tried to telephone for help but discovered the phone did not work. She went out on her porch around 5:00 a.m. to get some air and a little later saw Jerry Isenhour coming down the road to the barn. Ms. Jolly told Jerry Isenhour what had happened. The Sheriff’s Department was called and an officer arrived shortly thereafter.

Although Ms. Jolly was unable to identify the defendant, she described the perpetrator as a white, small male, in his early twenties wearing a cap, tan shorts, a sweat shirt and tennis shoes. He did not have any body fat and was not clean shaven but had no beard although he did have a moustache.

On 31 May 1987, two bloodhounds detected a track leading from the back of the Jolly residence to a culvert at Mecimore Trailer Park and then to the front door of James Workman’s trailer where Robert Lee Styles, Jr. (hereinafter the “defendant”) was staying. Inside the trailer, defendant was found lying on the bed [600]*600in the first bedroom wearing a pair of jeans. An agent with the State Bureau of Investigation observed a pair of running shoes and a pair of socks sitting next to a chair by the front door. The shoes were taken as evidence. At that time the defendant had a sparse beard and a moustache.

What appeared to be blood was observed on the bed in Ms. Jolly’s bedroom. In addition, shoe prints were found in the dust on the hardwood floor of the bedroom. Shoe prints were also discovered by the culvert near the entrance of the Mecimore Trailer Park. Expert testimony rendered in the form of an opinion revealed that defendant’s tennis shoes seized from the trailer made the prints in Ms. Jolly’s bedroom and the prints by the culvert. Additional expert testimony revealed that the hairs found on the floor and bed in the bedroom were microscopically consistent with those of defendant and could have originated from the defendant.

A shovel was found in the culvert at the entrance of Mecimore Trailer Park near where the shoe prints were discovered. A woman’s bra, a phone cord, an envelope with the name “Lillian” on it, and some napkins were pulled out of the culvert with the shovel.

Defendant was arrested on 3 June 1987.

The following issues are presented for review: Did the trial court err I) in allowing the defendant to be tried without being formally arraigned; II) in failing to dismiss the charge of first-degree burglary for insufficient evidence; III) in failing to dismiss the charges of second-degree rape and second-degree sexual offense for insufficient evidence; IV) in failing to dismiss the charge of common-law robbery for insufficient evidence; V) by imposing a sentence in excess of the presumptive sentence for first-degree burglary; VI) in understating the elements of the offenses for which the defendant was charged during the trial court’s opening remarks to the jury; VII) in allowing the district attorney to exceed the bounds of propriety in his closing argument to the jury without following said impropriety with an admonishment to the jury or correcting instructions; VIII) by allowing the district attorney to comment to the jury during closing arguments on defendant’s failure to testify and by not following said comment with an admonishment to the jury or correcting instructions; IX) in failing to admonish the jury or provide correcting instructions after a law enforcement officer made a reference to defendant’s prior criminal record while [601]*601testifying; and X) in failing to sustain defendant’s objection to the introduction into evidence of two photographs of defendant taken the day he was arrested.

I

For his first assignment of error, defendant contends the trial court erred in allowing the defendant to be tried when he had never been arraigned. We find this assignment of error to be without merit.

“An arraignment is a proceeding whereby a defendant is brought before a judge having jurisdiction to try the offense, so that the defendant may be formally appraised of the charges pending against him and directed to plead to them.” State v. Riddle, 66 N.C. App. 60, 62-63, 310 S.E. 2d 396, 397, aff’d, 311 N.C. 734, 319 S.E. 2d 250 (1984). At the arraignment “[t]he prosecutor must read the charges or fairly summarize them to the defendant” and should the defendant thereafter fail to plead, “the court must record that fact, and the defendant must be tried as if he had pleaded not guilty.” N.C.G.S. Sec. 15A-941 (1988). Failure to conduct a formal arraignment is not in itself prejudicial error “unless defendant objects and states that he is not properly informed of the charges.” State v. Brown, 306 N.C. 151, 174, 293 S.E. 2d 569, 584, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1080, 103 S.Ct. 503, 74 L.Ed. 2d 642 (1982). Furthermore, “[w]here there is no doubt that a defendant is fully aware of the charge[s] against him, or is in no way prejudiced by the omission of formal arraignment. . .,” the omission is not reversible error. Riddle, 66 N.C. App. at 63, 310 S.E. 2d at 397-98 (quoting State v. Smith, 300 N.C. 71, 73, 265 S.E. 2d 164, 166 (1980)).

Although as defendant contends, the record is silent as to a formal arraignment, the defendant here never objected before the trial to this omission. Furthermore, as the charges against the defendant were summarized to the jury and his plea of not guilty stated to the jury during voir dire

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Styles v. Hooks
W.D. North Carolina, 2020
State v. Battle
799 S.E.2d 434 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2017)
State v. LaFountain
680 S.E.2d 270 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2009)
State v. Hill
641 S.E.2d 380 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2007)
State v. Shaw
596 S.E.2d 884 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2004)
State v. Hilbert
549 S.E.2d 882 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2001)
State v. Frazier
542 S.E.2d 682 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2001)
State v. Hairston
528 S.E.2d 29 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2000)
State v. Brunson
463 S.E.2d 417 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1995)
State v. Young
462 S.E.2d 683 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1995)
State v. Buller
517 N.W.2d 711 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1994)
State v. Hodge
436 S.E.2d 251 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1993)
State v. Reid
410 S.E.2d 67 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1991)
State v. Autry
399 S.E.2d 357 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1991)
State v. Jones
386 S.E.2d 217 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1989)
State v. Styles
379 S.E.2d 255 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1989)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
379 S.E.2d 255, 93 N.C. App. 596, 1989 N.C. App. LEXIS 396, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-styles-ncctapp-1989.